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Competition: win tickets to the world premiere of Dezeen’s new film Elevation in New York

The world premiere of Elevation, Dezeen’s short documentary about how drones will change cities, takes place in New York on 20 May and we’ve got five pairs of tickets to give away.

The 18-minute film explores how drones will revolutionise the way people travel, how goods are delivered and how buildings look and are constructed.

It features exclusive interviews with leading architects, designers and cultural commentators including Norman Foster, Paul Priestman and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, who suggest that drones will dramatically alter our cities in future.

Unmanned electric vehicles (UAVs) could relieve pressure on the roads as deliveries and human transportation takes to the skies, the film suggests.

“Delivery drones are here right now,” says Priestman, chairman of design studio PriestmanGoode, in the film. “I think the next step is going to be humans travelling by drones.”

“I think you could well see the development of aerial highways,” says Foster, founder of Foster + Partners.

“Architects are using drones to actually build buildings”

Architecture could change dramatically as the ground floor entrance is replaced by rooftop landing, parking and recharging zones and deliveries arrive via specially constructed portals on the sides of buildings.

“In the future you’re going to be entering buildings in a completely different way,” Mark Dytham, co-founder of Klein Dytham Architecture. “That formal approach to a building is really going to change.”

In the future our cities could even be built by flying vehicles.

“Architects are using drones, some of them are using them are using them to actually build buildings,” Serpentine Galleries director Obrist says.

Yet as well as painting a picture of a utopian drone-filled future, Elevation also hints at more sinister uses of the technology, exploring potential threats to our privacy and safety.

“Now that drones are in the hands of every person in the street, they’re potentially as disruptive as the internet,” says Liam Young, co-founder of urban think tank Tomorrows Thoughts Today. “It’s an urgent moment to be thinking about what the possibilities are.”

“Questions about privacy and security are being redefined because of drones, and that affects the way we think about buildings as architects and designers,” adds Marina Otero Verzier, head of research and development at Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam.